One thing at a Time
by Broken-and-fallen
Summary: She wonders if he’ll take her with him when he spreads his wings and disappears into the sky. Balther/Vaan. Oneshots for each character.
1. Vaan

ONE: VAAN 

A soldier once caught a boy trying to pick his pocket, grimy fingers fumbling with inexperience at his pockets, and attempting to dart away before he got a good grip, the soldier's purse landing on the ground instead. He had caught the boy's arm and pulled him around, but at the sight of dirt streaked cheeks, wild platinum hair and frozen tawny eyes, he sighed and let him go. The boy stared at him numbly for a few moments, before turning and disappearing into the depths of Lowtown without a second glance.

Sighing again, the soldier bent and retrieved his fallen purse, stowing it back in his pocket. He was getting too soft on them, but it _was _a child after all, maybe after this the boy will think twice before thieving again.

--

The next time the soldier met the boy again, he didn't even realise. The boy was a year or so older, darker skin with lighter hair and even lighter fingers. Later that night when undressing he realised his purse was missing, and where it was was instead a small red flower bud.

--

Vaan was fifteen when Penelo found him in an airship hanger, sneaking about a docked ship and running tanned and dusty fingers over its hide, as if gentling a beast.

"Vaan!" she hisses, rushing forward and startling him. "I knew you'd be here! If another Pilot finds you with his ship it's on your head!"

"But _look _at Her," Vaan whispers. "Isn't She the most beautiful ship you've ever seen?"

Penelo had to admit, it was the most impressive, but not impressive enough for Vaan to be arrested for thievery and be taken away. Instead she rushes forward and takes his arm, not his hand, because they were at that awkward age when touches like that could be deemed inappropriate, and pulls him away.

"_Revenant Wings_," Vaan whispers, reluctantly letting Penelo drag him away, staring over his shoulder. "Wouldn't that be a great name Pen?"

"Yeah, yeah," Penelo grumbles. "Hurry up! The others'll get fed if we don't hurry and we'll only get scraps."

They quickly scurry away, small, fleeting little mice, through the sheet of iron Vaan had pushed through to get into the hanger, and disappear into the streets, as if they'd never come. Convenient timing, one could propose, as at that moment the great metal doorway slides sideways like liquid, and two Sky Pirates waltz inwards to collect their ship, the young man spending just a moment to raise an eyebrow at the dusty handprint on his precious hull, before taking an embroidered kerchief from his pocket and wiping it away.

--

"I'm going to have my own airship," Vaan tells her, as they lie on their backs in the darkness of Lowtown and listen to the _drip drip drip _of the leaking pipes that lead all the way to the Garamsythe Waterway.

"Yeah, yeah, and you're going to have lots of treasure and wenches and fame and you'll forget all about your real friends," Penelo snorts, but then they both fall very, very quiet, and she feels sad to think it's probably true. She wonders if he'll take her with him when he spreads his wings and disappears into the sky.

--

Vaan doesn't say, and doesn't dwell on the fact, but when Balthier reveals the _Strahl _in all Her glory to the group, he can only pause for a moment, to give Balthier a fleeting, wondering look. After that all thoughts are dashed away, because he is young and he is alive and there is an _airship _in front of him and She is beautiful, so why in Ivalice is he still standing around?

He likes to think he gained another point in Balthier's eyes when the Sky Pirate looked his way in the bridge to check he wasn't doing anything annoying, and found Vaan marvelling at the polished leather on the back of the pilot seat, dusty fingers tracing old, old, symbols into the black and then taken away again so Vaan may sit back and marvel.

The man in front of him snorts and looks away, but Vaan can imagine him smirking just slightly and nodding once, in approval.

--

Vaan was fifteen and three quarters when he got his first whipping, and it is nothing compared to the look Ashe gives him as she tells him to _be quiet _and goes to stand beside Balthier, as if a Sky Pirate with rejected aristocracy is any better than a faithful boy who dreams of open skies.

--

Penelo comes to him in the dark of night.

"Vaan," she whispers, tip-toeing to his bed with the quiet balance of a dancer. "Vaan."

"What is it Pen," he replies. "It's late."

"I can't sleep," she admits, "My room's nearest to the engine and it's really loud."

"What, you want to bunk with me?"

"No!" she snorts, and he laughs too, because they are really good friends and really good friends don't bunk together, unless they're _really good friends_. "I want to borrow one of your pillows, to block out the noise!"

"Only if you block out _your _noise," he grumbles, and turns away, completely at ease with the hum of the _Strahl_, because She is an airship, and he hasn't come all this way to be disturbed by the singing of an airship.

--

Vaan is seventeen when he touches the controls of an airship for the first time, with firm but gentle aristocratic hands enveloping his and manoeuvring them about the gearsticks.

"Land her softly," Balthier says. "Her weighting does take some time to get used to, and I don't want you banking her on the cliffs."

Vaan bites his lip and only nods, _once_. His hands are trembling and he thinks his shoulders must be to because Balthier pats him on the back (_once)_, and tells him he's doing a fine job. Vaan wonders where this newfound encouragement comes from, but doesn't ask, because, a lot like Balthier, it could disappear as quickly as it came.

He makes a perfect landing, and is amused to hear more than one relieved sigh emit from the crew behind him, Fran tapping her long nails against her forehead temperamentally before disappearing with the excuse of needing a good strong drink.

Balthier smiles and nods, once, and exits the cockpit, leaving Vaan all alone with his legs feeling like lead and his hands trembling so hard Penelo has to help him let go of the controls.


	2. Balthier

**TWO: BALTHIER**

When Ffamran was ten, his father bought him an airship model, a _dream in the making _Cidolfus had said, because airships of this design were fanciful at best, and to make it would be a folly and expensive concept.

"That is why they resolve to become things of amusement," his father tells him, setting it on his bedside table, where it lights up with a sort of sickly green light, casting jewel-shadows over the boys face. "And will never account to anything," he leans over to place a goodnight-kiss against Ffamran's forehead, and it takes years for the boy to really wonder what his father had been talking about.

--

Ffamran is made an Imperial Judge, and attends lessons briefly with few of the Judge Magister's who consider him to have risen through the ranks fuelled simply by his fathers will. Ffamran knows they are correct, though he does still show considerable talent with the gun and other such ranged weapons to merit him modest complements from the others.

He still attends lessons with his father, though over time he realises he becomes an assistant rather than a learning pupil, or even less so, a learning son. Nethicite becomes Cidolfus' primary concern.

And so Ffamran leaves.

--

Ffamran - no, Balthier, steals an airship with fanciful design that the contractor thought ridiculous. Something about the dual-moveable wing design. Balthier thinks She is wonderful and takes her away to modify Her the way he wishes.

"Were you also unwanted?" he murmurs to the blinking dark, all alone in the bridge.

--

He introduces himself as Balthier, and the Viera shows no recognition at the name, even though by now he has conjured himself a reputation to be proud of.

"Fran," she replies, slowly, eyes not even staying on his face and long slender ears swivelling in all directions of the tavern. Balthier can see her bow, and he's sure Fran _knows _he can see the bow, because it is only a little shorter than herself and Fran is very, _very _tall, but Balthier asks anyway.

"Do you care to shoot?"

An amused look lights up Fran's eyes, and Balthier thinks himself to have scored a point.

"A joker, are we?" she asks coyly, her voice thick with the strange talk of the Viera.

"Only when the company allows it, madam," Balthier replies, ever the gentleman. He presses further. "Though I don't suppose you'd care to shoot for a living. Adventure, airships, all of that."

"One might think," she's dancing around the subject and Balthier realises belatedly that they've created a conversation of cat-and-mouse. "Only, if the company _allows _it however."

"Say this company does, would one be interested?"

Fran looks left, and right.

"You have no crew?"

"I like it better that way."

"You say that far too easily, _master Sky Pirate_. Perhaps it is something you say often?" and suddenly her eyes are dark with wisdom and Balthier realises how young he really is. "Because you do not and hope for someone to rectify this?"

Balthier's easy grin drops a notch, and he takes a sip of his _Madhu_. A silence passes between them.

"Would you be willing to?" he asks eventually, raising his eyebrows. This seems to catch the Viera off guard and one of her ears twitch thoughtfully, nearly poking a passing waitress in the eye.

"Perhaps," she says finally, though she concedes to clink mugs with Balthier and he knows he has her won over.

--

The street rat comes aboard the _Strahl_, and he is interested to see Vaan holds Her in the same proud reverence Balthier does, cleaning everything he touches, trailing dusty fingers over the dormant controls with awe. His hands clench the passenger seat arms everything time they take off, face growing warm and eyes wide with barely bottled excitement.

Balthier overhears him in the Den with the girl, Penelo, once, and doesn't know what to make of the feelings it inspired.

"- And when we get back, Migelo'll be so happy to see us he won't give us chores for _weeks_, Vaan. And you'll be famous at _The Sandsea _for all the marks you've dusted off, not to mention the Clan Hall, they'll have banners for you Vaan!"

"Penelo-"

"And we'll have enough Gil for the kids back in Lowtown to get proper food for a year, they won't have to steal like we did, and-"

A silence passes, and Balthier raises an eyebrow from the other side of the door.

"... You don't want to come back, do you Vaan."

After that neither of them spoke again, and Balthier retires to his quarters in troubled silence. Before he steps inside, Fran pokes her head out from her own room, obviously having sensed his troubles.

"Is something the matter?"

"Yes," Balthier replies. "Though it is nothing I can't handle."

"You can't handle something if you do not know what it is." Fran replies quizzically, and disappears with the glimmer of violet eyes and a small smile.

Balthier hates it when she's right.

--

'_What is it you want, Vaan?'_

Sometimes Balthier wishes he never had asked that, because if he hadn't Vaan might not be staring at him like he was now.


	3. Penelo

THREE: PENELO 

Her earliest memory of him is when she was attacked by a Dire Rat, wishing she hadn't left her handy dagger at home. The Rat shrieked wildly as it splashed hesitantly across the overflow cloaca towards her, and Penelo was just beginning to cry when a pebble shot out of nowhere and caught the rat between the eyes. This was followed by a rain of pebbles, which didn't hurt the beast in any way but was certainly enough to scare it off.

When Penelo got to her feet she was faced with a group of young boys. The leader was a bit older than the rest, with deeply tanned skin and wild platinum hair, a streak of dirt across the bridge of his nose.

"Hey!" he said, holding out a hand. "You okay?"

"Shouldn't be down here without a weapon," a smaller one spoke up, and the rest murmured an agreement.

"I was looking for my brothers," Penelo said quietly. "They sometimes come down here to fight the rats for sport but…" she looked around, a little lost, and finished lamely. "They're not here."

The leader blinked at her for a moment before bursting into laughter.

"Well duh! Come on," he rushed forward and grabbed her hand, tugging her up the stairs back towards Lowtown, the other boys following obediently. After that she discovered her brothers had been at _The Sandsea _windows, hoping to catch more news of Sky Pirates or the latest hunts. They hadn't been down in the cloaca for weeks, apparently, something about a horse. The group's leader was called Vaan, and he had to leave soon after to look for his own brother, who had gone hunting in the Westersand to earn them some Gil for dinner.

Penelo forgot to tell him her name before it was too late.

--

The boys named her princess, and she visited them sometimes, and never questioned how they collected enough Gil to buy her presents.

--

Penelo is twelve and a half when Vaan says –

"Hey, Pen,"

(She is completely oblivious to how these words will affect her for the rest of her life)

"- What do you think of Sky Pirates?"

Penelo blinks and looks up at the sky. They are sitting on the railing of the bridge between upper and lower Rabanastre, and Vaan is flipping a coin of Gil in his hand, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"I dunno," she says truthfully. "Why?"

"I suppose they never have to go hungry, with all that treasure."

"I suppose…"

Vaan doesn't say anymore on the subject, but then again, he doesn't say anything else, either.

--

Penelo's the first one to notice, or maybe even the only one to notice, how when Vaan first boarded the _Strahl _his eyes were either trained on the controls or on the back of Balthier's head, eyes almost boring through him with anticipation and admiration.

"Vaan, stop staring," she whispers to him once Balthier and Fran are in deep conversation about the _weather _of all things, though, she supposes it's a proper subject when you pilot an airship.

"I'm not staring," he hisses back, blushing bright red. She rolls her eyes exasperatedly at him, and he sticks his tongue out at her. Their exchange isn't lost on Basch, who raises his eyebrows at them both but says nothing. Now Penelo is blushing bright red too, and she aims a misguided kick towards Vaan, hitting the back of Balthier's seat instead.

"There better not be scuffing going on back there," Balthier says with a warning tone. "Or you'll be cleaning it off."

"Yes _father_," Penelo mocks, and she and Vaan snicker to themselves when a horrified shudder runs through the pilot.

"No thankyou," he says, passing a glower to the smirking Viera beside him. "Two brats are enough to take care of, even worse if they were my own."

"You barely take care of us in the first place," Vaan points out.

"Then why bother staying?" Balthier retorts, and the bridge goes silent as Vaan doesn't reply.

--

Penelo's standing in a corridor of the _Strahl_, all alone in the dark, and all she can hear is the gentle humming of the engine and Balthier's and Vaan's voices in the bridge. She knows if she goes to stand in the doorway, she would be able to see her friend in the Pilot's chair, hands resting gingerly on the controls, and Balthier beside him, murmuring quiet instructions, gentle fingers resting a second too long on top of Vaan's.

--

"Why don't I come with you?" Penelo asks breathlessly. They're resting at the Mosphoran Highwaste, and Vaan is using some water from one of the shrines to scrub dried blood off his leg where a Wary Wolf caught him by surprise.

"Huh?" he asks intelligently, pulling sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes.

"Sky Pirating, you know," Penelo sits beside. "You need a right hand man - er, woman," she adds, and he grins at her. "Like how Balthier has Fran! We could be a team!"

"But you've never been interested in Sky Pirating Pen," Vaan chuckles. "What's brought this on?"

"Nothing!" she says quickly, pulling out a Potion and handing it to him to drink. "Just..."

"Come along then,"

They both look up - Penelo startled, Vaan relaxed, as Balthier approaches. His face is sour and unamused and Penelo blushed and looks away.

"- We should go," Balthier is saying. "If I have to hear _her Ladyship _go on about the architecture of the Galtean Alliance one more time I think I shall go mad."

"Madder, you mean," Fran adds, coming up beside him and crossing her arms. Even she looked a little miffed at the princess chattering away behind them, Basch standing dutifully beside her with a trapped expression.

"If I hang around with you lot any longer I just might," Balthier smirks and offers Vaan a hand when the boy stands and tests his leg wearily. Brushing it away Vaan scowls, but grins, and Penelo watches sadly as he buckles his armour and they set off again.

She jogs to catch up with him, and takes his arm.

"Just don't leave me, okay?" she asks.

"Where would I go?" Vaan replies, amused, and then smiles at one of Balthier's jokes.


	4. Fran

FOUR: FRAN FOUR: FRAN

Her earliest experience of the outside world, was venturing through Rabanastre, and finding many orphans below the ground crying for their parents. She wondered if her sister was right, and there really wasn't anything else.

A young man approaches her in a tavern, whilst she is drinking to calm her nerves, and he gives her an easy smile. At first Fran brushes him off as another outsider curious into the Viera happenings.

Then he starts speaking of freedom, and open skies, and Fran can't help but listen.

--

Fran helps Balthier into the vault, and they are just about to claim their prize when the street rat whirls around, all dusky skin and bright, innocent (but not so innocent) eyes staring at them. He clutches the shard in his grimy hands like a beggar to a roll of bread, and his chest his heaving in the excitement of it all.

_It's mine _he insists hotly, and Fran must admit she admires the boy for breaking in on his own. But then Balthier shifts beside her, and she glances curiously at his face to find it thoughtful.

"And when we take it from you, it will belong to me," Balthier replies snidely. Fran inwardly chuckles. She wonders if there was another meaning to his words.

Hume's always were attracted to the strangest ideas, she thinks oddly. It reminds her of a time in the forest when a baby couerl was facing off against an elder over a fallen mandragora. In the end, the elder took the baby into its pack because it had been so brave.

--

Fran watches through the gate as Vaan is surrounded by the Seeq, and she has to admit she is surprised when Balthier interrupts the fray to protect the boy, a strange sort of protective annoyance on the Sky Pirate's face.

--

"Do you think he's going to become a Sky Pirate?" Penelo asks her when they are resting for a picnic beside one of the ponds in the Tchita Uplands. The Viera tilts her head slightly.

"Vaan? I cannot say."

"But what do you _think_?" Penelo insists, and they look over to where Vaan was snapping angrily at Balthier, while Basch and Ashe stood by shaking their heads with exasperation. Fran's face contorts just slightly into what could have been confusion.

"There is no certainty in guesses," she says, nonplussed. "So why make them?"

"I just wanted your opinion," Penelo grumbles, pouting. She munches frustratingly on some desert fruit. "That's all. Don't you ever _wonder _if he'll be a Sky Pirate?"

"Well," Fran offers tentatively. "I see the Sky in his eyes."

Penelo looks back at the group. Vaan had stopped arguing with Balthier, and instead mirth blanketed his face, and his eyes were bright and happy, focused entirely on the man. Ashe came and joined the other girls by the pond, pouring herself some drink. When she noticed the faraway expression on Penelo's face she asked Fran what was wrong.

Fran shrugs. "She does not see the Sky," she says by way of explanation, and Penelo looks back at the pond.

--

Fran watches with curiosity at the haste in which Balthier throws an antidote to Vaan, and then performs a Quickening just to give the boy some time to heal.

--

She approaches Balthier in the tavern and sits across from him. He doesn't raise his eyes from his drink.

"It would be something no one expects from you," she says. "If it calms you."

"Sometimes," Balthier murmurs, and he raises his eyes to look to the lower level of the tavern where Vaan and Penelo are dancing a merry jig with some orphan children. "I wonder if people really don't expect me to do things."

"You think he knows?" she asks thoughtfully.

"I think he's waiting," Balthier says. He drinks deep, and then stands, descending the steps to the group.

--

Fran enters the bridge of the _Strahl _and finds Vaan sitting in the dark, the only light coming from the switches and casting unsure shadows across his face. It is after the Pharos at Ridorana, and Fran knows what words have cast such turmoil in the boy.

"The Leading Man never dies, does he?" Vaan murmurs, not noticing her presence. "Or goes away?

"If he does," Fran says, and Vaan jumps (quick little desert thief). "He always comes back."

Vaan's eyes are blue and heavy and warm and bright and Fran smiles only slightly.

"They may not be the same," she says cryptically, brushing a platinum lock out of his face. "But at some point the desert and the sky have to meet."

Vaan looks older than before.


	5. Ashe

FIVE: ASHE

**FIVE: ASHE**

She jumps off the ledge and into the arms of a young Rabanastre street rat, who puffs up like a hero and looks over his shoulder to wear two adults are standing. The male rolls his eyes, and Ashe could swear the Viera chuckles knowingly.

--

She slaps him, hard, because he _deserved _it, because he _betrayed _her, and fights down the little voice inside that asks her maybe _she _deserved it too - for not making Rasler stay.

--

"You seem troubled."

Ashe turns, thinking she had found solitude at last in the dark quiet of the Nalbina ruins, next to a stained mossy pond. But, of course, the Viera finds her. Ashe wonders how a seven-foot woman in high heels could be so quiet.

"Do I?" she asks, clearing her throat and fighting away the sting in her eyes.

"This place troubles you I see," Fran wrinkles her nose. "I myself find it... disconcerting."

"It doesn't trouble me, it just..." she trails her hand across the surface and a few small fish struggle through the moss to nip at her fingers. "I've been fighting so hard, I only just realised that I have almost forgotten what I was fighting for."

"Yourself or the kingdom," Fran nods slowly.

"I am a horrible person," Ashe sighs, and splashes the fish away.

--

She wonders if she hadn't been so mixed up in her own problems, she would have noticed the bruises on Vaan's neck sooner. Balthier seems to, because every time she catches him staring at them there is an almost proud smirk on his face and it just confuses her more.

--

She just doesn't understand what he _sees _in the boy. She is standing at the Phon Coast, the sun is shining, and she just had a deep conversation with the fabled Sky Pirate - who was always more than he seemed (A shining beacon of freedom on the horizon she'd never reach), and yet it is to Vaan the man looks. The boy is playing amongst the waves with Penelo, splashing and jumping and laughing uproariously as Basch unceremoniously stumbles over a dune.

Ashe can't remember when she laughed last.

--

"You can't be perfect," Vaan says helpfully, approaching her in the _Strahl _in the dead of night, both searching for food.

"I should be perfect," she snaps back. "Otherwise what good will I be for Dalmasca?"

Vaan shrugs. "What good would a statue be?" he replies, almost unknowing of his own philosophy. He passes her, whistling, and heads to the bridge, where a dim light flickers from the control panel. Ashe stands, shocked, at his words, until murmurs reach her ears and she strides away, eyes hot with tears. It brings back memories of childhood playing, of Rasler painting her face in secret and the two accidentally spilling paints and charcoal all over the drawing room floor, before running and hiding in the gardens until unappreciative nurses found them.

Ashe returns to her quarters and sits on her bed, a mirror in one hand and a small brush in the other.

--

She wonders if she could be as noble as Fran, but as sweet as Penelo. But she knows deep down in her heart that those traits go hand in hand with freedom, and that is something she will never know.

--

Penelo enters her cabin at one point to find Ashe's face painted white with big rosy lips and green eye shadow. Shocked, the should-be Queen sits there in horror as the girls face goes from white, to red, to pink, and then the street-rat bursts into laughter, falling to the ground and holding onto the doorframe for support.

"Oh Ashe!" she exclaims. "That isn't how you put on makeup!"

Before she can protest, Fran enters too, and the rest of the afternoon which would have been spent on passive contemplation is thrown away to make room for makeup lessons, wardrobe rifling, and whispering about _boys_.

--

Towards the end of the journey, she notices that Balthier has a collection of many rings, but only one is gold.


End file.
